The Hand Read online

there," Mac said, "ain't got no business 'round herescarin' the pigs and chickens. And I aim to get it."

  "I wish you had told me where the hand is," Alice said, her eyesscalded with tears. "I tried to find it. I looked everywhere. If I hadfound it I would have given it to him and now they'd be gone."

  He shoved her from him rudely. "Jest like a woman to do a thing like that.And without even askin' me." He was breathing hard and he moved to thewindow to look at the alien again. "You, out there. You want that hand,eh?" He laughed again, then turned to her. "You looked for it. That's whatyou said. Well, you jest looked in the wrong place. I hid it good." Hewent over to his coat and withdrew a newspaper-wrapped package from one ofthe pockets. He unfolded it on the table. It was the hand.

  "Please take it out to him, Mac," Alice said. "He's waiting for it."

  His face was sour and his lips a sneer. "Give it to him, hell," hesaid. "Dobie brought it here, didn't he? I've a mind to let Dobie haveit."

  "No, No!"

  Mac put his hands on the table, stared down at the hand and shook hishead. "But Dobie don't deserve it."

  He picked up the hand and a queasiness prevented Alice from lookingdirectly at it.

  "It's a matter of time," she pleaded. "Please take it to them. They'vegot to have it right away or they can't use it. She heard the clink ofone of the stove lids and watched in horror as Mac dropped the handthrough the hole into the fire beneath. She was suddenly sick. Duringit all she could hear was Mac's laughter.

  "Git on upstairs," he said a few minutes later. "Git on up to bed."

  * * * * *

  Alice looked at him, knowing her face was pale and her eyes wet andhating him for what he had done to her and what he had done to thealiens. But she felt fear, too, because she had never seen him quitelike this.

  "What are you going to do?"

  He went over, took down a box of shells from the cupboard. "What d'yousuppose? I'm goin' to run that thing off my place."

  "You can't do that!"

  "You wait and see."

  "But he's done nothing to you!"

  "He's on my property, ain't he? Now you get on upstairs like I toldyou. Git!"

  Alice went up the stairs engulfed by a feeling of sorrow for thealiens, particularly for the one that would never get his hand back,and filled with fury for her husband.

  From her bedroom window she could see the alien still standing in theyard and she wondered what he would think of them for burning the handand for what Mac was about to do.

  She stood there a long time before the alien moved. She heard thedownstairs door open and close and she knew Mac was outside and thatthe two were approaching each other. The alien finally moved from herfield of vision.

  Listening, she heard the alien's calm, whistling voice but she couldnot make out what he said. She could only hear the raving of herhusband and this she did not want to hear.

  When the shotgun blast came she jumped as if she herself had been hitand once again she was flooded with compassion for the creature fromanother world somewhere who had come in friendship and who had beengiven something hateful in return.

  She went to the window but she could see nothing. She did not dare godownstairs again with Mac in the mood he was in. She sat in anarmchair at the window looking out into the barn lot illuminated bythe lone electric light high in the windmill. And eventually, she didnot know when, she fell asleep.

  When she woke up the day was just dawning and with a rush sheremembered everything that had happened the night before and she foundshe had slept through the night in the chair without removing herclothes. When she stood up, her muscles screamed protestingly. Shelooked out into the yard and saw that the light in the windmill wasstill burning.

  She went to Mac's bedroom, expecting to find him sprawled out acrosshis bed. But his bed had not been slept in. Downstairs she expected tofind him, head in hands, asleep at the kitchen table. But he was notthere and the shotgun was not in its place on the wall.

  She found the gun on the doorstep. But Mac wasn't in sight. Dobie cameup to her and nuzzled her hands.

  "Where is he Dobie?" she asked. "Where's Mac?"

  Dobie turned and trotted before her, looking back at her as if to say,"This is the way."

  She found Mac behind the barn.

  He was alive, but in a state of shock, moaning in pain and fear.

  His right hand was missing. Severed neatly at the wrist.

  THE END.

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